
The U.S. Air Force is dropping plans to build a new ground-surveillance aircraft, opting instead to begin developing an advanced battle management system that can fuse threat information from various new and existing sensors to provide a comprehensive view of the battlespace.Air Force Undersecretary Matthew Donovan said the service’s $156.3-billion fiscal year 2019 budget request, unveiled Feb. 12, contains no money to replace the aging E-8C JSTARS ground-surveillance aircraft with a modified civil jet. Rather, the budget focuses on the…